a weird time to be jealous . . .

the mother of a colleague passed away this morning. She had been battling cancer for quite a while, but she died too young.

I need to dig through my pile of cards, pick up a pen, and write a note of sympathy to this co-worker . . . but I am struggling in a way, because I don’t know how to keep my jealousy out of it.

no, I’m not jealous that they lost their mother, or jealous of the pain and grief they will be facing in the days and weeks to come . . . rather, I’m jealous that they have such an amazing woman to grieve . . . that in the crapshoot that is the assigning of parents, this colleague of mine clearly won the grand jackpot. In updates on the website created to chronicle her journey, there were often remarks made about how often other people said that this woman felt like she was their mother, too. Understandably possessive, the actual children of this woman spoke of having had to struggle with the idea of this, with needing to share their mother with others.